We've all taken a dodgy cab in our time. One guy asked me to give him a back-rub in exchange for letting me off the fare. I was like, "here's the cash mate." Another chappy claimed to be Paddy Patel - a child actor from UK TV series Tuckers Luck - he drove like a speed freak and regaled me with stories that "playing a black Irish boy. England wasn't ready for it." So go on - tell us your worst and we'll tell the world.

[edit: for those confused by the term mini-cab, London has two sorts of taxis: highly regulated, licensed and salt-of-the-earth black cabs that you see in films and a whole bunch of unlicensed, uninsured, random cars driven by nutters who aren't supposed to pick up from the street (you have to phone for them). They are universally rubbish]

A couple of years back
I use to work as a supervisor in a call centre and did some late evening shift in order to make some extra money.Since we finished at around midnight we always got cabs home.Since I was locking up the office the guy who took the booking for my cab always warned the driver that there might be some delay.Anyway this one evening, one of the other cabs didn't turn up on time so I had to wait around as I couldn't let my poor interviewer waiting all alone in the middle of Brentford, so I went out and told my driver that he'd have to wait a bit longer, which he didn't like one bit and told me he was gonna charge me waiting time, when I said this wasn't a problem, he started to get annoyed. 10 minutes later, the other driver arrives so off I go in my cab. At the time I use to live in Manor House and since I do not drive I am not good at giving directions but told the driver that he could get me to Camden, I could tell him the way. Anyway the entire drive to Camden was ponctuated with insults to other drivers, to me ("you're a girl, you shuld not be working so late, who knows what could happen")We get to Camden I tell the guy to get onto Camden Road, but he turns into Kentish Town Road, so I try to get him back on tracks, but he doen't listen so we end up in Archway. At this point, he was getting really pissed off, telling me that I should know the way, to which I reply that: a) I don't drive so I don't need to know about one ways, etc b)that he could have utilised the waiting time to actually find out how to get where he was going. Once I told him that he decided to get me out of the car, left me stranded in the middle of Holloway Road and had the cheeck to ask me how to get back.
(albator, Thu 27 May 2004, 13:14,
Reply)

So many:
1. We were coming out of the Camden Palace about 10 years ago at about 4am, and anyone who's done the same will know what happens. Minicab driver mayhem. They scream and shout and jostle to get your attention. This time, a fight broke out, ending up with about 10 cabbies brawling on the pavement. We just stood there and pissed ourselves laughing.

2. I was once chased for about half a mile on foot by an irate minicab driver screaming 'where's my fucking tip!?'. What a twat. He couldn't even drive. And he smelt.

3. My brother once called a cab from our flat in London. The cab turned up and collected him. 5 minutes later, he walked back in through our door, having been in a head-on collision about 100 yards down the road. Both the other car and the cab were written off.
(8-Ball, Thu 27 May 2004, 13:05,
Reply)

eye tests in zimbabwe
Victoria falls zimbabwe, having been down the tourist market and bought too many wooden elephants and bush catapaults, myself and 2 friends flagged down a cab and jumped in the back with out checking out the driver.

This was our first mistake as when the driver turned round to ask us where we wanted to go he turned out to be so cross eyed that he could cross the road with out checking either way. Our second mistake was all 3 of us breaking down with the worst fit of giggles as soon as he had pulled away. All 3 of us unable to stop crying with laughter only distracted the poor guys attention from the road because he spent more time turning round in his seat to see what we were laughing at than looking ahead / sideways (however he managed it) at the road.

An Iranian Chap'd be to blame for this one
It'd been a big night out, and in black-cab fares I was about £20 away from my home. Off our collective tits my friends and I got a night bus half-way to my house where we all dispersed. A minicab promptly arrived after a swift drunken phonecall driven by a pleasant Iranian chap whose English was questionable at best.

I slurred my way through asking for '[my road], Halewood please', a location about 15 minutes drive away at a black-cab cost of £8 or so. After a multitude of wrong-turns and a near-miss with a stationary car I arrived at what the driver assumed was my intended destination; Liverpool John Lennon Airport. Despite having a radically different number of syllables to my actual destination I thought 'fuck it' and made like everything was OK. "£15" he said optimistically. I'm not sure how he translated "My arse", he seemed less than impressed with the fiver he received before stumbling out trying to find the entrance to the terminal building.

An hour and a cocking half walk later, across two fields and several A-Roads and a dead fox I arrive home; dawn breaking, family up and about getting ready for school and work and whatnot. The bastard.
(Pablissimo, Thu 27 May 2004, 12:39,
Reply)

The only cab I've gotten that was worse than the turkish experience I had once
(we made the mistake of telling the driver we were in a hurry to get to Istanbul airport, and ended up in an Outrun-style speed race through the city and motorways to get there early, shaken and bruised...)

...was a cab in Lima. In Peru, to become a taxi driver, you need a little yellow sticker marked "TAXI", and - for preference - a car.They all use yellow cars, so to attempt to regulate this, the government stencilled numbers on the side of official cabs. So of course the rest of them just painted numbers on!

Anyway, the long and short of it - having bounced hard off a barrier on the high coastal road, I told the drunken driver I'd like to see more of the city on the way, in a desperate attempt to get him off the cliff road.He decided to nip north then, burning through the grid of dirt roads in the barrios.This coinsisted of accelerating constantly, blessing himself before holding the horn as we flew threw junctions - narrowly missing the blur of other blaring cabs crossing our path...

I guess it's cheaper than a rollercoaster if nothing else...
(WhoElseI'm what Willis was talking about, Thu 27 May 2004, 12:22,
Reply)

Upon falling into a cab in Leicester
A mate and I after a night on copious amounts of lager fall into a cab somewhere in Leicester.

The rest of the ride home was in complete silence. As if we're going to say yes !
(DrGonzo, Thu 27 May 2004, 12:18,
Reply)

Hellish journey
We heard there was a party one night so 3 of us get into a minicab and off we go.

We know the name of the road and the number of the house, we just don't know where in the city it was. So the chap is driving around a bit then he stops to read a map, spends a good 5 mins looking at it, then he turns a corner and we are there at the party. He then tries to get us to pay some stupid amount, we tell him to fuck off, we are not paying for his reading time. We offer him some money and then open the door to get out. One mate gets out and he starts driving off so the open door batters her and leaves us screaming at him to stop. We ask him, what he thinks he is going to do with us?? He drives right down the road, screaming at us to close the door, we don't we leave it swinging open until he was pulled over by the nice kind policemen who let us go, with our money, ha ha fuck you Mr Cabbie!
(smithsonian, Thu 27 May 2004, 12:13,
Reply)

Party Driver
Last summer I had a party... some mates turned up at about 11pm and invited the driver in with them. He was a very nice fella, told us all about himself and how this was his second job to support his family etc. Although thinking about it he was probably only telling us this due to the fact that he was getting more and more drunk on a bottle of Bacardi. He finally left at about 1am despite us offering him the sofa presumably to pick up another fare.

He wasn't the only special guest that night either. Some girl invited the Pizza delivery man in and spent half an hour getting off with him.
(mister nice guy, Thu 27 May 2004, 12:02,
Reply)

Unfortunately i don't have any taxi anecdotes..
so i'll just complement "grouch" on making me piss myself laughing for about 18 hours*.

Sunday league football.
About 9 years ago a mate and myself were heading to the meeting point for our sunday league team in a cab. We're still pissed from the night before and pretty knackered when the cabbie starts having difficulty driving up a main road in a straight line. Eventually he pulls over puts his head on the stearing wheel and says "Sorry lads I think I'm still too pissed from last night". We got out, quickly.
(Evil Bastardo, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:59,
Reply)

i was hammered in a club in sheffield, and out of
cash, so i stumbled out and headed off home; taxi driver asked me 'where too?', so as i didnt have much cash i mumbled; halfway back to my house please.course, i forgot theres a place outside sheffield called halfway, and all i remembered for 2 days after was waking up by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and it took 2 buses to get back into town. my only consolation was my arse wasnt sore - the relief when i remembered what had happened!-realising we were nowhere near my gaff, id just jumped out of the taxi and thrown him all my money, and fell asleep.
(Capt'n Fabulous, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:57,
Reply)

Cairo Cabby
From cairo airport on the beginning of a 2year backpacking trip - very naively caught a dodgy cab. Just outside the airport there is a check point to check for dodgy cabs. At this the driver mounted the pavement and drove around the checkpoint straight onto a motorway and great speed.The passenger window fell down and when I tried to wind it up the handle came off in my hand.The windscreen wiper fell off and when we got to central cairo the driver pulled into a dark alley - very scary.Luckily he didnt attempt to mug us but when he pulled my rucksack out of the boot he pulled the handle off my brand-new Karrimor which then lasted the rest of the 2yr trip tied with string!
(cowkicker, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:56,
Reply)

Cab journey sightseeing trip
Caught a cab to a party with the GF - going from Wimbledon the cabby took a long roundabout route so he could drive past Wimbledon Common where he slowed down and turned around to us and said "a girl was raped and stabbed there last month".Nice way to start an evening.
(cowkicker, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:52,
Reply)

After a pretty
heavy night of drinking, drugs and other excesses 3 of us hail a 'minicab' from Old Street (near the Banksy SO19 bridge) and ask the quite clearly stoned of his tits rasta cabbie how much for a cab to Rainham, all the way down the A13.

Cue Rasta driving at around 110mph down an A13 that they were still developing!

Being in the front seat naturally i was shitting myself, but he very kindly put on his reggae mixtape and in a strange parallel with another b3tan gave us a couple of spliffs worth of his weed.

Minicabs
may be dodgy uninsured heaps of rubbish, but there's been many a time when a black cab won't stop (despite its blazing light) unless you're on their route home. Mini cabs are cheap, don't care where they go, and make your journey home more exciting and on the edge.
(corington, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:37,
Reply)

Serves him right
A few years back, a fella I know(lets call him Chris), after a heavy night on the beers, decides to get a mini cab home. Now Chris lived with his parents in a massive house, and was by no means short of a few quid. Upon arriving at the entrance to his 200m long drive, he decides to jump out of the cab just as it stops in with the plan being to run away and hide in the bushes in order to save himself from paying the £4.40 fare. Clever eh? Not so clever when he runs down a little lane, slips in some mud, falls and breaks his leg, in the pouring rain at 3am. Needless to say the taxi driver couldn't find him, and Chris spent two and a half hours dragging himself up the drive in agony, to his front door. The best part - when he finally reached his door he couldn't stand, and the doorbell was just out of reach. He ended up waiting there until 7am, when the milkman found him and called an ambulance! To be honest I think he deserved it....

Rotten cabbage
Getting a cab home in Dublin one night after a solid drinking sesion. Its about 6am and the only cabbies left on the road are pure deviants and drunkards.

I recieved the latter. It was quite obvious he was drunk, because he told me so and, needlessly, pointed to the an empty bottle of gin to emphasize the point.

Being as late as it was I knew my chances of getting another cab were slim, so I buckled up and remained in the "brace for impact" position.

About a mile from my house there was a terrible noise, the car veered across the road and sparks began to fly around the car. I saw the front left wheel bouncing merrily down the road in front off us. Cabbie seemed perfectly unfazed or unaware of events and attempted to drive on. I was struck dumb with shock/fear. The car, sparks flying and screaming like a banshee,lurched into a ditch on the side of the road. Eventually, having a moment of clarity, cabbie gets out to see whats wrong. He studies the mangled wreckage of the front of his car, scratching his head and furrowing his brow, in a vain attept to comprehend the situation. Then he has a master stroke! He whips his cock out and pisses on the damaged area. Probably believing his unrine contained some form of magical tonic.

I got out of the car a feigned concern for a minute, stroking my chin and kicking the axle in a knowledgable way. Then he started to cry. Sensing my opportunity, I began to back away slowly, then sprited like the wind all the way home.

Lying in bed that night I swear I could still hear his gentle sobbing.
(Smell eep!, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:30,
Reply)

Tranny fanciers
I'm a tranny and was enjoying a night out at a club in London. I had to move my car (why the hell do you Londoners have traffic wardens working at midnight? Insane!), it was freezing cold and I didnt have a coat with me.

Once I'd moved it a taxi driver drove past and offered me a lift back to the club (only a few streets away but I was on my own and thought I'd be warmer and safer in the cab).

Little did I know the driver was a tranny fancier, he asked me what were the chances of him picking me up that night... I was mortified, told him I fancied women not men but said he might be able to pick up a girl if he came into the club later. It worked and he dropped me off safely outside the club.

I realised afterwards that he could have locked the doors and driven somewhere remote to have his evil way with me... let that be a warning to ya! If you ever get dolled up in a skirt, makeup and high heels, don't accept lifts from pervy taxi drivers...
(wiggys, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:30,
Reply)

Small blue tablets and a red Ferrari:
Where the hell was I?

Somewhere in the north I think. OK, imagine the cabbie is a northerner:

Cabbie: "Do you like the drugs lads?"

Us: "Yes. Immensely. In fact we're enjoying them right now"

Cabbie: "I used to hate them - then this Viagra come along..."

Note: Viagra in this case is pronounced "Vee-Aggerer".

Cabbie: "...changed my life it did - that Viagra..."

Us: *nervous wait for annecdote*

Cabbies: "...On Sundays (pronounced "Sun-deees") when the Formula 1 is just about to start - I neck a Viagra. One hour later I'm riding the Missus shouting 'Come on Schuey! Come on Schuey!'"

Us: "This is our stop"

I will never forget this moment. I'm a huge Grand Prix fan and ever since that day in the mini-cab I spare a thought for the driver and his wife at both the start of the race and again when Martin Brundle says "We're at the halfway stage here at Imola...". No my friend. For some the race has just begun.

Mad psycho cabbie
While at uni my mates and I got into a local mini cab driven by a very pleasant Indian gentleman. You know the sort, beaded seat cover on all the seats in the car, a CD with a horrible rainbow pattern hanging down from the rearview mirror which can only serve to blind anyone looking roughly in the direction of the mirror. Fag burned seats and carpets, I'm sure you know the drill.

Well, he was supposed to be taking us into town from our university halls but for some reason decided to take a completely different route to that which normal cabs take. It soon dawned on us we were going nowhere near town at all. When we questioned him, he told us that he was taking us back to his house to meet his wife because she didn't believe he drove a cab so he wanted to show her some customers. We all started to suggest that this was, perhaps, not the best of things to try and that we were sure his wife would be fine after a little sleep and some valium. Our driver, however seemed to be strangely immune to our calls and when we were about to open the door of a moving car and leap from it, the police pulled him up for speeding.

He went on to tell the police that he was taking us to see his wife, that the speedo on his car was broken and he didn't know how fast he was travelling, that he was not a licensed cabbie and that he was unnisured because he couldn't afford the sky high premiums. Obviously the policemen were slightly taken aback by this outburst of truth. In fact they thought he was being sarcastic at first, and we all know that there is nothing the police like less than sarcasm. Not even crime.

They took him away in a police car and told us they would send someone to pick us up as we were by now in the middle of nowhere. When we were finally dropped off at the student union from the back of a meat wagon everyone thought we had been nicked ourselves. To this day I still have nightmares about our favourite cabbie.
(_earwaxuk_, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:10,
Reply)

Cock and balls.
About 15 years ago, my mate was in a cab with another guy and this guy's girlfriend. They stopped and let the girlfriend out, the guy saying he'd see her tomorrow before her flight. The taxi driver (from the asian 'Startax' cab firm in Bury) drove off and asked the two guys where she was going. 'She's going to a Kibbutz in Israel for a few months.' said the boyfriend.The driver replied,'Ah, she be loving it over there. Cock and balls and plenty of it.'

I don't think they gave him a tip.

I mention it's an Asian firm because it helps if you do the voice.
(chobb,ø¤ºGREATº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºRAPISTº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºRECOMMENDEDº¤ø, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:09,
Reply)

Mini Cab from Heaven
Got one a couple of months back from East London back to North London, from outside a club where the vulture minicab driving throng was waiting to pounce on unsuspecting/off-their-tits clubbers. He pushed his way towards us, shouting that he would charge us only a tenner to go anywhere inside the M25. Obviously not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth, we grabbed him and piled into his car.

After a minute or so of driving, he turned in his seat and said "You want to skin up? I've got a big bag of weed ...". He then proceeded to do several laps of the Tottenham one way system so we could finish the spliffs.

What a star. Never seen him again.
(noodledoodlereally shouldn't share his humour, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:08,
Reply)

richmond to chiswick bridge please
- a phrase which should fill any normal mini cabbie with dread. im surprised they still agree to take us, because we always run.

cab one - dropped friends off at house - friends refuse to pay (thirty quid for two minute journey). cabbie gets out, punches mate on tit. mate retorts 'what kind of a man punches someone on the tit?' he then tries to kick the back window through. which is open, so he gets his leg stuck in it as the cabbie keeps trying to hit him. hilarious.

cab two on the way back from booze in chelsea. cab driver can't even speak his own tongue, let alone english. cue blue flashing lights in the rearview mirror. cabbie panics, tries to convince us we are blood relations and that we should tell the boys in blue that we are familly. cab gets pulled over... the car isnt insured, the driver has no licence, the car isnt even his and the cabbie shouldnt have even been in the country.

Semi-Pearoast from the 'comebacks' question
I was trying to flag down a taxi after a night out with my girlfriend. We only live a couple of miles from town but at this point my girlfriend had her ankle in plaster and couldn't manage the walk home. Having stood just short of the main traffic lights (the best place to get one as they have to slow down/stop anyway) for five minutes we finally got one to stop. This fat, greasy f**ker leans over, winds down the passenger window and asks us where we're going. I tell him and he snorts "You can walk there you lazy f**kers. F**k off!" and screeches off. However, in the time it's taken him to fire off his witty insult the lights have changed so I just stroll casually down to where he's stopped at the lights, whip the old boy out and piss all over his car. I even managed to get some through the still-open passenger window and over him as he hurriedly wound it up.
(R. Jimladtwitter.com/sirmarkymark, Thu 27 May 2004, 11:00,
Reply)

Does this count?
A mate of mine Big Tim, was out enjoying cold drinks one night in fashionable Leicester, and at the end of the evening he decided to hail a mini-cab.The crazy guy.Anyway, a guy pulls up and Big Tim tells him his address '10 King Road, Please'.And away they go.On arrival at Big Tim's house, he asks driver 'How much do I owe you?''I'm not a cab driver.''What?''I thought you were kidnapping me.'

Tim is Big. He got his lift home for free, needless to say he had the last laugh.
(Sex Panther, Thu 27 May 2004, 10:53,
Reply)

We've been taking a lot of cabs early in the morning recently
to get to Hammersmith Hospital for insanely early appointments.

Anyway, the other week we get a guy who managed to get from Holloway to White City (about 10 miles) in 12 minutes.

At one point he saw a mate of his on the elevated section of A40 and decided to race him to the junction.

We arrived 40 minutes early for the appointment and 20 minutes before the clinic opened.
(chthonic, Thu 27 May 2004, 10:47,
Reply)

When working in Japan
I often had to take taxis to companies I taught at. Japanese cabs are weird. The drivers wear white gloves and the passenger door is operated by a handle by the driver's seat. Anyway, one day I settled back in the familiar plastic-covered seats for my short ride to the plastics factory - why they needed to learn English I'll never know. I was a little perturbed when we took a wrong turning and headed for the Tomei expressway, and even more so when we headed for Fuji city. My Japanese wasn't great so I tried to tell the guy that we were going the wrong way. Well, it eventually worked when I flashed the company logo in front of his face, but by then we had to wait until the next exit to turn back. Suffice to say I was little late to that class, not that the students probably minded missing half an hour of phrasal verbs.

I had other experiences with this particular cab company. One of their drivers was rather nervous (perhaps because he had a hairy white gaijin in the back) and would keep on twitching nervously while driving. When I had to ride with this particular driver I feared for my life.
(mynci boy, Thu 27 May 2004, 10:32,
Reply)

Everyone pales in comparison
to my all time "cab from hell" story.One night, my gf and I were driving to a party, and pulled in to get some petrol. I went in to pay, and there was this fucking massive cabbie grabbing a 1.25L bottle of coke out from the fridge. This guy was about 6 foot 4, and would have weighed about 160kg. He was wearing the largest cab company shirt available, and I swear, his nipple was hanging out the bottom on one side. He had the longest greasiest hair i've ever seen and I could smell him from the other side of the shop. Anyway, he pulls this bottle of coke out of the fridge, and puts it into his mouth and twists the top off, spits it on the floor and proceeds to scull the entire bottle. He turns to walk to the counter, and it's only then that i realise:He's only got one fucking arm!So anyway, we're out for dinner a couple of weeks later, and we're heading back to a mates house for more drinks (not that we needed them). Whose cab should we step into? You guessed it. My gf and i get in the back, and as soon as the door closes, the smell hits us; putrid. Too late to get out, we're trapped. Anyway he sets off and once the cab is in motion, he reaches across to the glove box with his ONLY ARM and pulls out a bottle in a brown paper bag; clearly Jim Beam. Apparently coke wasn't gonna cut it that night...He takes a big swig, politely offers me and gf some, and then puts it back. He then turns the radio up as loud as it can go and we end up having to listen to fucking Tupac for the rest of the trip. It's at about this point that he stops steering with his knee and puts his one hand back on the wheel...which is probably a good thing too, because whenever I drive at 160km/hr in an 80km/hr zone, i like to have at least hand on the wheel. Anyway, we've got to where we needed to go without dying somehow, despite him running all but one of the red lights that we had ("bloody red light cameras"), and we get to out destination, and I pay, and he refuses to give me the change, on account of him getting us there faster than any other cab could have.....I've spoken to other cabbies since, and they all say that if women catch his cab alone, he'll put the hard yards on them, and if they're in the front seat, he'll try and feel them up (with his only arm)...
(coweringinthecorner, Thu 27 May 2004, 10:29,
Reply)